17. echo #3
Nichlas jerked against the restraints when he saw the blade. The chair legs scraped across the floor, but I had positioned him far enough from anything useful that all he accomplished was moving himself a few inches.
“I told you what happened.” His words came faster as I approached. “I told you everything I knew. What else do you want?”
“I want you to hurt.”
He stopped pulling as I came around behind him and rested one hand on his shoulder, feeling the muscle bunch beneath my palm.
“Every time I breathe wrong, I can feel your betrayal. Every time I twist too fast. Every time something catches the scar in just the right place. You left me with a reminder I get to carry around for the rest of my fucking life.”
I slid the blade through his shirt just below the shoulder, opening the fabric before touching skin. Nichlas started begging before the point ever landed, and I listened for a few seconds because I had imagined this sound often enough that hearing the real thing deserved some attention.
Then I drew the blade across him. The cut was shallow and long, deep enough for blood to gather immediately along the line before spilling down his chest. Nichlas screamed and threw his weight sideways, nearly taking the chair over with him.
I caught the back before it tipped and shoved it flat again, laughing when he tried to twist far enough to see what I had done.
“Stop moving. You’re making the line ugly.”
“Jesus Christ, Echo!”
“He isn’t coming.”
I wiped the blade against the clean side of his shirt before moving around to face him again. His eyes were huge, fixed on my hand, and tears had started running freely through the blood drying beneath his nose.
I wanted him to know something terrible was happening and have no control over when it stopped.
I caught his left hand and turned it palm-up despite the awkward angle of his restrained wrist. His fingers curled automatically, so I forced them open and pressed the tip of the knife beneath one nail. Nichlas understood immediately.
“No. Echo, no, please. Don’t.”
His scream broke halfway through and came back hoarse.
Blood welled around the edge of the nail as the point slid beneath it, and his entire body locked hard enough to make the chair tremble under him.
I stopped before doing permanent damage, withdrew the blade, and watched him suck in air through his mouth while sweat broke across his forehead.
“That one was for leaving me there.”
He sobbed something I could not understand as I moved to the next finger.
“That one can be for waiting until you were safe to come looking.”
“Please, please, I’m sorry.”
The blade went beneath the second nail more easily because my hand already knew the angle. Nichlas made a broken sound and kicked against the restraint around his ankles, smearing the blood from his shirt across his thighs when he folded forward as far as the chair allowed.
I gave him a minute afterward.
His breathing needed to slow enough that I knew he was still with me, and I wanted the fear to rebuild between each new thing rather than blur into one continuous stretch of pain.
I poured water into a glass and held it to his mouth until he drank, stopping when he started coughing and letting him recover before setting it aside.
“How long are they gone?” he whispered.
I checked the time.
A little over two hours since the elevator doors closed behind the Kings.
“Long enough.”
His face crumpled. “They’ll kill you for this.”
That made me smile. “No, they won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know Malakai is going to look at this chair and wonder why I didn’t pick something easier to clean.
Ronan is going to be pissed if you bleed on whatever he considers his.
Hunter will probably develop a new vein in his forehead.
” I rested the blade against Nichlas’s thigh and watched his eyes follow it.
“But none of them are going to kill me for hurting you.”
He shook his head desperately. “I’m protected.”
“For now.”
The words seemed to hurt almost as much as the knife.
I pushed the point through his trousers and into the outside of his thigh.
Nichlas screamed again as I sank it only far enough to bite into muscle, then withdrew and pressed my thumb beside the wound until blood soaked through the fabric in a widening circle.
He tried to jerk away from the pressure, but the restraints gave him nowhere to go.
When I released him, blood ran down the side of his leg and dripped from the edge of the chair onto the floor.
I watched the first drop hit. Then another as Nichlas stared at it too.
“You wanted to know when I’m going to kill you,” I said, setting the blade down long enough to flex my fingers. “I still haven’t decided.”
His chest hitched.
“That’s the fun part. Maybe it’s tonight. Maybe Hunter walks in before I get bored. Maybe you survive and spend another week wondering whether the next time I smile at you is the last thing you ever see.”
“Echo…”
“I told you already. Death is easy.”
I moved behind him again and reached for the knife. Nichlas started screaming before I touched him, and this time I let him.